Learning

L started Kindergarten this year. She loves it, but then she loved preschool, so I was not worried. L is bit like her mother, in that she likes to know what is on the agenda. While I am much more spontaneous now than say 5 years ago, the bottom line is having a "To-Do" list is helpful and keeping track of activities on a calendar is ever so necessary. L likes to know stuff. So usually over breakfast we review the plan for the day.

Sometimes, like yesterday, she will repeat it back to me. So yesterday she had this to say, "So we are going to go work out - well Mommie you can work out E & I will play, then the grocery, then home for lunch, then the bus stop, and THEN I GET TO GO LEARN, and then we get to walk and play outside, then dinner."

I decided to point out that she can learn all the time. So I go thru the "we are always learning...." speech and she looks at me and says, "Well sure, but at Kindergarten the only reason I am there is to learn. That is the ENTIRE point. School is for learning - the other learning stuff Mom is incidental."

Yeah, so ok when I picked my jaw up off the floor, I agreed and suggested she go play. I mean she is right - the point of school is to learn. (When I ask you did my 5 year learn words like incidental?) While I suppose the other learning can be incidental I am of a mind that it should not be. I think we need to constantly open to learning something new, learning the lessons life throws at us, challenging ourselves.

I think the minute we close that section of our head then a door very well may be closed forever. I think that we have to very vigilant in our efforts to constantly be open to learning something new. Now as a matter of practicality, in our media over stimulating world, I think we have to be careful to limit the sources as a matter of self preservation. It is important to choose your sources wisely. But my thoughts on that topic are another matter entirely.

My point today, of all days really, is that we need to be focused on learning from our mistakes, by being open to change, to embrace that life has real and powerful lessons if only we would take the time to listen.

Todays is September 11. A day that I know will hold real significance for me until the day the I die. Six years ago today, I saw on television, live, that evil does exist. That hate, fanaticism, insanity can combine with disastrous results. Many innocent people died. It was mass murder. It proved to me that hate has a real power.

But today, six years later, I wonder if somehow the lessons we should have learned from those terrible moments have somehow been lost? Have we closed out minds to the real lessons we should have learned that day. I look at the world today and I see more hate, more violence and less love and compassion. I see more that is driving us apart, where I had hoped to see more that pulls us together.

Sadly I am fearful that we have taken an event which should have taught us some really stark lessons and somehow missed the point. In this above many other lessons, I am hoping we will not need a review or a repeat to learn the lesson being present. I pray for that not to be the case. I hope that as with some tough lessons, this one will merely require a bit more quiet reflection to actually sink in.

So while L is right, the point of school is to learn, I would humble submit that life, the day to day, has alot to teach us as well - if only we are open to learning it.